The present invention generally relates to electronic data processing, and more particularly, relates to method, computer program product and system for client-server communication.
Server-pages, such as JavaServer Pages™ (“JSP”) pages, that include relevant information for a graphical user interface (“GUI”) are typically generated on a server. The result is a browser-document that the server transmits to a client. At the client, the browser-document is rendered for display by a conventional browser, such as the Microsoft® Internet Explorer. When the user interacts with the client through the GUI to refresh the page, the whole process is repeated. This requires high bandwidth of the computer network that connects the client to the server because the whole page (layout information and data) is re-generated on the server and the resulting browser-document is re-transmitted from the server to the client through the network. Further, the user is confronted with undesired effects, such as waiting time or screen flicker, until the refreshed page is finally presented.
Some conventional browsers, such as the Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, include a feature for flicker-free rendering. When the client receives a modified page, the browser identifies modified components of the page and only replaces these components instead of the whole page (for example, by dynamic HTML injection into the page's document object model). This leads to a reduction of screen-flicker for the user but still requires bandwidth for transmission of the whole page from the server to the client.